‘Piano’ played at full volume

August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson” is a play in multiple keys, switching between family drama, ghost story and slice-of-life exploration of African American regionalism. Keeping up with its chromatic shifts isn’t easy, but the Hayworth Theatre’s passionate if somewhat hammy revival is up to the task. This full-throttle production conjures a vision of America so complex and rich with gothic portent that it feels positively Faulknerian.

In a ramshackle house just outside Pittsburgh, single mom Berniece (Vanessa Bell Calloway) wakes up in the middle of the night to find two intruders -- her estranged brother Boy Willie (Russell Andrews) and his friend Lymon (Roscoe C. Freeman). It turns out that Boy Willie wants to sell the family piano to buy land down South, but his sister quickly puts her foot down, insisting that the instrument should stay in the family.

As brother and sister cross swords, the play kicks into supernatural high gear. Someone sees the ghost of a long-dead family member lurking in the hallways, setting off a wave of paranoia. Later, the piano itself seems possessed, literally groaning every time Boy Willie lays a hand on it.

Of the ensemble cast, the standout is Calloway, who plays Berniece with steely conviction and blazing intelligence. The actress’ no-nonsense performance grounds the second half of the play in tactile details -- just watching her cook pork chops or comb her daughter’s hair is an enthralling experience.

Less successful are the male actors, who tend to amp up their delivery to a deafening fortissimo. It’s amazing that any ghost could stand such a racket. “The Piano Lesson,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, turns into a full-blown occult thriller in its final moments. This production follows it fearlessly over the edge and into the deep end.

-- David Ng

“The Piano Lesson,” Hayworth Theatre, 2509 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. 8 p.m., Thursdays through Saturdays. 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. $27-$32. (800) 838-3006 or www.thehayworth.com. Running time: 2 hours, 30 minutes.

-- Anything goes in ‘Point Break’ spoof

Like, here’s the thing: “Point Break Live!” totally shoots the tube. This uproarious interactive spoof of Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 blockbuster film approaches garage-theater Dada in its unfettered mix of mosh pit and wrap party.

Created by Jaime Keeling, “Point Break Live!” lets attendees drink and mingle around banquettes and a sunken stage where the show plays out virtually in our laps. Apart from following the outlandish screenplay -- Keanu Reeves’ ex-football-star-turned-federal-agent becomes a surfer and sky diver to infiltrate Patrick Swayze’s gang of presidential-masked bank robbers -- “Point” owes its hilarity to two elements.

One is the anything-goes approach maintained by directors Thomas Blake, George Spielvogel and Eve Hars and their cast. Tobias Jellinek brings a priceless deadpan to adrenaline junkie Bodhi Sativa (the Swayze character). Spielvogel lays waste to Gary Busey’s turn as burned-out Angelo Pappas, and Blake goes for broke as the ill-fated Roach. David Simon adroitly carps as by-the-book Agent Harp; Jennifer Jean wryly skewers Lori Petty’s surfer girl; and surfers/FBI goons Jan Milewicz and John Miller pull the film’s homoerotic subtext into riotous bas-relief.

The other key factor is the audience, and not just because we endure live video, wind machines, squirt guns and more. (Rain ponchos are available and recommended). Each performance casts an unrehearsed volunteer in the Reeves role of Johnny Utah, as Lisa Renee’s bluff Bigelow gives direction, Adam Douglas’ stage manager wields props and Christie Waldon’s lithe production assistant rifles through cue cards and stunt doubles. At the reviewed performance, a lawyer named Chip assayed the coveted part, kidney-threatening in his uninflected line readings. “Point Break Live!” shamelessly rides the gnarly breakers of travesty until viewers wipe out on the shoals of helpless laughter.

-- David C. Nichols

“Point Break Live!,” Charlie O’s in the Alexandria Hotel, 501 S. Spring St. in Gallery Row, L.A. 8 p.m. Fridays and Thursdays. Indefinitely. Adult audiences. $20. (866) 811-4111 or www.theatermania.com. Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

-- A luminous, all-male ‘R&J’

After hours, four schoolboys escape their regimented existence by secretly enacting “Romeo and Juliet,” awakening into new awareness as they go.

That scenario might put people in mind of “Dead Poets Society,” but Joe Calarco, who devised this contextualized version of Shakespeare’s play, writes in the published acting edition that his inspirations were “The Crucible” and “Lord of the Flies.” He means “Shakespeare’s R&J;” to evoke a world where repression and a mob mentality weigh down on two young people sharing their first forbidden kiss.

This mostly comes across in the play’s presentation by the Production Company. Director Derek Charles Livingston, formerly with Celebration Theatre, is a vivid stage artist, and he works here with two actors -- happily, the two who portray Romeo and Juliet -- who grippingly convey their characters’ transformation. The production probably won’t create the stir that Calarco’s New York staging did in 1997 and ‘98, but the fault is as much Calarco’s as anyone else’s. He pared Shakespeare’s text with no major loss of impact, but some of his setup (such as military-style marching to indicate the lock-step thinking of a Catholic school) is too heavy-handed.

As the boys’ ringleader, David Pintado is impetuous at first. Yet as he experiences new emotions while portraying Romeo, his face slowly suffuses with wonder. He’s responding in part to the quiet radiance in Wyatt Fenner, which burns ever brighter until there can be no question that his Juliet truly “is the sun.”

Livingston makes artful use of a strip of red cloth that is virtually the sole prop. It’s pressed into use for costuming and enlisted in tugs of war to represent sword fights. By the time it flows, liquid-like, to simulate ingested poison and spilling blood, the mournful beauty of this presentation -- intermittent in the first half -- is fully in bloom.

-- Daryl H. Miller

“Shakespeare’s R&J;,” Chandler Studio Theatre, 12443 Chandler Blvd., North Hollywood. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 8. $20. (800) 838-3006 or www.theprodco.com. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

-- A difficult road to travel in ‘Living’

Their meet-cute isn’t very: Teenage Lisa (Rachel Style), all lank hair and hunched shoulders, meets handsome, creepy Clint (Martin Papazian) while her prostitute mother (Saige Spinney) services one of Clint’s friends. Lisa desperately wants out but has no idea what she’s in for. Seems Clint likes to pick up vagrant girls, sexually abuse them, then kill off the evidence. Before long, Lisa’s learned to use her new husband’s gun.

Rebecca Gilman’s “The Glory of Living,” now at Burbank’s Victory Theatre Center, was a 2001 Pulitzer Prize finalist, and its implacable anatomy of a damaged girl who has no tools for determining her own value, or anyone else’s, has an undeniable impact. Gilman expertly keeps us from identifying Lisa as victim or perpetrator, and there’s an impressive stubbornness in the playwright’s refusal to let the audience make up its mind. But the problem with the banality of evil, inadvertent or otherwise, is that it doesn’t make very compelling viewing. Once we understand what Gilman wants to tell us, the play’s prosaic, almost autistic style begins to wear. There’s only one way this is going to go, and we’re way ahead of Lisa.

That isn’t to say that the Victory Theatre hasn’t done solid work. With the exception of one phony interrogation scene, this “Glory” is directed with a sure hand by Carri Sullens, who draws out fine, grounded performances from most of her cast. Papazian eerily convinces as the psychotic Clint, and Evan Silverman gives a brief but memorable turn as one of Lisa’s unlikely survivors. But this is Rachel Style’s show, and she deserves kudos for inhabiting Lisa’s indeterminacy with such steadiness. Whether audiences want to ride to the end of the line with her is another matter.

-- Charlotte Stoudt

“The Glory of Living,” Victory Theatre Center, 3326 W. Victory Blvd., Burbank. 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Ends Dec. 16. $24-$26. Contact: (818) 841-5421. Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.

-- Hit and miss on four Coward plays

An evening of one-act plays by Noel Coward would seem like a slam dunk for most theater companies. Just deliver the lines without messing up and audiences will be rolling in the aisles.

But not so fast: The Antaeus Company’s uneven production of “Tonight at 8:30” proves it’s all in the execution. When you perform Coward properly, it’s sublime; when you don’t, it’s torture.

This is the company’s first of two installments of Coward’s cycle, and it consists of four one-acts. (Two casts alternate nights.) The best plays come after intermission: “Hands Across the Sea” is a farce that takes place in the living room of Lady Maureen “Piggie” Gilpin, a British socialite with a short attention span and a long list of house guests. In the tragic “The Astonished Heart,” a psychiatrist’s wife confronts her husband’s infidelity with a surprising proposition of her own. On a recent Sunday, Nike Doukas and Jeanie Hackett played Piggie and the wronged wife, respectively, and both actresses delivered performances of astonishing nuance and impeccable timing.

Before experiencing those marvelous works, however, audiences will have to endure two less successful plays. “We Were Dancing” is light even by Noel Coward standards -- a colonial wife wants to leave her husband for a man she met while dancing, only to reverse her decision in the harsh light of day. In the backstage comedy “Star Chamber,” a troupe of British actors attempts to get through a committee meeting. It’s definitely not a good sign that a lap dog receives the play’s biggest laughs.

Antaeus will debut the second installment of Coward’s one-acts this week. Perhaps they’ll consider dropping the period songs that the cast performs in between plays. Coward’s vintage writing needs no help in the ambience department.

-- D.N.

“Tonight at 8:30 -- If Love Were All,” The Antaeus Company at Deaf West Theatre, 5112 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. See website for schedule. (866) 811-4111 or www.antaeus.org. Running time: 2 hours, 45 minutes.